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The impact of African traditional religion on people
Assimilation into the American culture
Acculturation and assimilation
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In Africa, the place of progeneration for those who traveled the Middle Passage, many of the original non-Christian indigenous beliefs and traditions exist still today. These quasi religions exist in the form of spoken word, handed down through oration often seeing embellishment or modification to fit the unique geographical demand. These beliefs are “spoken through tongue and written in hearts”.
Examples of these religions are seen with the peoples of Yoruba, Igbo, Ashanti, Fon, Ghana and Nigeria. There is no leader or hierarchy, only belief. These are many of the same beliefs and traditions that would have been carried through the Atlantic Slave Trade, only to be supplanted by religions given to these slaves by their masters (sometimes through
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The Catholic Church labeled them as witchcraft. Remnants of these beliefs can readily be seen in places like Haiti and the Dominican Republic where African tradition is expressed through the once secretly practiced traditions of Santeria and Vodou. As City College of NY professor and popular Latina author Lyn Di Lorio notes “every Latino neighborhood boast a botánica, a store selling candles and other supplies for ceremonies.” This can be seen in the Afro-Latino cultural centers of New York, Miami, and sprawling American East Coast where decedents and recolonized Africans from Columbian, Peruvian, Spanish, and Cuba reside. These traditions are everywhere and often outlast the dominating sect and predate Christianity. These traditions and beliefs helped describe who these Africans were. Their cultures were defined by tradition, dance, art, communion with ancestors and earthly spirits. To maintain their identities, many of the newly adopted beliefs and iconography was coopted. The image of the Virgin Mary or Mater Dolorosa, for instance, became the Goddess of Love – Erzuli. For those in West Africa, the Fon and Yoruba, Erzuli remained untouched as the Goddess Oshun in the land of Dahomey which later became modern …show more content…
Enter the civil rights movement, where the Social Justice Warriors of old, trumpeted by prefixes of Rev., set the continuing standard of religious adhesion to Black identity. Where many mainland Africans can define their identity by geography or tribe, the African American coheres to a set of standards that has been self-selected by a movement. It is a significant contributing factor, but not the only. The role of the Black Church serves many central functions required for survival and community of those that still try to assert their voices at the table of the majority. The role of Black and Minority churches goes much further than providing the word of God or proselytization to those communities; they provide a vein into valuable social services not easily replaced. They feed the poor, provide financial routes to academic achievement, intercede when perceived or real injustices occur, and provide an invisible safety net to many people regardless of color should they falter. Many have leveled arguments that religion, faith, and the Black church are some of the worst hindrances to the Black community (I am one of those voiced) – it is a tool for moral control of slaves given to them by their slave masters, but it’s important to note that both Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey both cited the Bible and relevant passages to justify revolt and
This paper elaborates on the diverse contributions peoples of African descent have made to the pluralistic religious landscape of America and replicates various passages from our textbook. It focuses on the personal narratives of non-religious to religious leaders—exemplifying their influence on the African American religious movement during slavery and the reconstruction of America. Each section represents different historical periods, regional variations, and non-Christian expressions of African-American religion.
The Yoruba religion was brought to the Hispanic Caribbean approximately four hundred years ago by African slaves during the period of conquest and colonization of the new world. The religion remained traditionally strong among the African community until the Spanish conquerors began to prohibit its practice. When the Spaniards reached the New lands they brought with them the religion of the reigning King. That is Queen Isabella's religion; Catholosism. The conquerors forced the slaves to accept the Catholic faith as their new religion. The African, stripped already of their dignity refuse to give up their religious beliefs, this belief being all they brought with them. Knowing of the negative ramnifications, punishment and sometimes even death if caught "devil worshipping" it meant that in order to continue to worship theri Gods the angry Africans had to find a way to practice thier religion. They astutely hide theri religion behind Catholic religious practices and saints.
The embodiments of the Regla de Ocha, Santerian religion, is rooted in West African previous religious practice of their deities. Africans were forced to move to a new place, where to expose to a new language and new religious faith. They were able to have some ideas of how to continue to serve and maintain their religious practice. “Thus, the deities of the Cuban Creole world resulted from the “crossing” and mixing with those of others region of African and the Catholic saints; individuals choose or are chosen to receive initiation into one or several traditions” (Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert 33). Through being forced to adapt to the Cuban Catholics ways, they were able to interlink their religious practice within the Catholics ways of worshiping different saints. Meanwhile, they were then able to be accepted in society while maintaining their natural belief. The adoption of the transculturation allows the African to balance both their religious practice and
A Eurocentric understanding of the early modern era would the Islamic world. While, the role of the Europeans on a global scale was that the Europeans were becoming involved in world affairs. The Europeans also became involved in the oceanic journeys of European explorers and the European conquest and colonial settlement of the Americas. The Europeans also became involved in the global silver trade.
Author of “The Negro Family”, E. Franklin Frazier believed that the centrality of the bible, structure of Black worship, and notion of God that evolved from the invisible institution to the Black Church was confirmation of the power of white influence . These tactics and different developments were merely adaptive methods used by slaves in order to worship freely in a confined space. Frazier’s beliefs were undermined by author Gayraud S. Wilmore’s description of Vodun in his book Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Frazier’s contention that black religion was evidence of white influence assumes a blank and passive slate. While Vodun in West Africa did have organization that was probably “infiltrated by Roman Catholicism” the goal of New World Africans was to adapt and understand their lives (Wilmore 43). Although white influence was forced upon New World Africans, slaves did not accept this influence but rather interpreted it to create a new, place-based Vodun religion. Vodun adapted to New World conditions, functioned as a coping mechanism, and possessed evolutionary qualities.
... This would be no small feat since Christians had for generations practiced and defended not just slavery, but the hatred and demise of anything black or African. Cone's mission was to bring blackness and Christianity together.” # In 1969, Cone published Black Theology and Black Power. In this book, Cone brought attention to racism in theology and proposes a theology addressing black issues, this theology would provide liberation and empowerment of blacks and “create a new value structures so that our understanding of blackness will not depend upon European misconceptions.”
The African Methodist Episcopal Church also known as the AME Church, represents a long history of people going from struggles to success, from embarrassment to pride, from slaves to free. It is my intention to prove that the name African Methodist Episcopal represents equality and freedom to worship God, no matter what color skin a person was blessed to be born with. The thesis is this: While both Whites and Africans believed in the worship of God, whites believed in the oppression of the Africans’ freedom to serve God in their own way, blacks defended their own right to worship by the development of their own church. According to Andrew White, a well- known author for the AME denomination, “The word African means that our church was organized by people of African descent Heritage, The word “Methodist” means that our church is a member of the family of Methodist Churches, The word “Episcopal refers to the form of government under which our church operates.”
In the 1500’s to the 1900’s African slaves would be put through traumatizing events such as being taken from their families, abused both mentally and physically, and were treated as animals instead of human beings, all because of trade. This began when Christopher Columbus, a Spanish explorer, tried to go west instead of east to the Spice Islands and he found South America. Spain travels to this land and finds many empires and tribes and soon sends more explorers like Hernan Cortes. Cortes was a very terrible man, he ruined the Aztec empire with smallpox and greed, all because they had gold. Hernan began to use the Aztecs as slaves to look for gold. He returns back to the King and Queen that sent him.
In the book Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe, one of its first focal points was the local spiritual beliefs of the Igbo culture. The Igbo gods are an embodiment of nature and its surrounding elements, supports that they are an agricultural civilization that relies on the change of seasons and natural occurrences in order to survive. They worship the goddess of the earth and try their best not to go against her “principles” in fear of vengeance. The afterlife and the spirits of ancestors were powerful motivating factors. Each person had their own personal god, better described as chi. While chi wasn’t the most significant spirit that was praised, but was served as somewhat of a guardian angel, which can be a relative
The Black church has had strong ties with the black community and minorities in general in America. It has not only catered for the needs of only the black people, but of most disadvantaged groups of people. Of note is its role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s were the church provided the man power and resource needed to accomplish the task. It was the crucible for shaping and grooming leaders to take up to banner and run with the vision
They believed that trade brought population expansion and further enhancement of culture. As the Ghana Empire had been established, trade of gold with the Arabian people had brought Muslim influence. Soon the rulers of the Ghanaian Empire had adopted the Arabic script, however still maintained their traditional religion. The Africans, on the other hand, had brought a complex religious heritage to the Americas. They believed in the supreme Creator of the cosmos. Meaning, they worshiped their superior being in natural forms of objects, as well as believing in heaven and hell. Honoring ancestors and mediating between the Creator and the living was their traditional religion.
Since the beginning of humankind, there has been one common thread that ties together all cultures and religions of the world: an attempt to explain their origins. this holds true for the numerous religious groups existing on the African continent. In the absence of science, they resorted to creating stories to account for what they did not and could not understand. While similar in their basic design and theory, these stories varies greatly in their content and meaning. By studying them, much can be learned about the African people of the present and past.
To colonize the land of Nigerian tribal people or any other lands in the world, the British wisely used religion as a tool of invasion. Though the process of spreading Christianity took longer time than war and killing, the attack on belief and spirituality made the native people completely submit to the new government which generated and supported the religion that those people followed. In fact, the British missionaries succeeded in convincing the Igbo people of the new religion despite the Igbo’s conservativeness and extreme superstition.
UNISA (2014). Tutorial Letter 501/3 (2014). Comparative religious studies: introduction to the religions of the world. Pretoria: UNISA.
Attempting to analytically appreciate the religious inclinations of the populaces of the Caribbean, it is undeniable that the region must be consumed as a whole. With interconnecting origins, environs, and social formations, it was interesting to consider the emergence of Caribbean religious affiliations collectively. Through the process of socialization, displaced persons culturally survived the misfortune of slavery and the pressures to dismantle their embryonic religious autonomist groupings. Under an anthropological scrutiny, the regrettable interrelations between colonial entities and slaves of their possession generated modern misconceptions of Caribbean religions and attributed to their current configuration. Spinning under the pressure